Depravation
by Nea-writes
Summary: "You were drafted into the Third Exorcist program, descended from the Second Exorcists'. Central has implanted an akuma into your body to keep you alive." Exorcist!Red
1. Chapter 1

A Exorcist!Red AU. Written for _m0rkl_ over on tumblr, and _WhyPie_ on AO3.

 **Warning:** Graphic descriptions of pain and other sicknesses, along with suicidal thoughts and contemplation. Heresy. Lots of cursing.

* * *

 _Depravation_

* * *

Red wishes they would have waited. For his death or his innocence to save him first, he didn't care, but _fuck_ he would've begged on his hands and knees and sang _alleluia alleuia_ if it would have let him simply be in peace.

But, God is not nearly so kind nor is he prone to granting prayers, and so when Red wakes up in so much pain even the Devil would sympathize, all he can think is that Leverrier is back. The only time Red is in so much pain is when Leverrier has cast his eye upon him.

Red makes for excellent study material, given how quickly his body heals, how sturdy he is, and how alone he is. No one will mourn his disappearance or death, except for a select few already chained and manipulated by the Order as it is.

But, this experiment doesn't feel right. Something is horribly wrong, he can feel it in the very marrow of bones screeching in horrible agony, and he thinks this is what being burned alive is like, what being struck by the very lightning cast down by storms must be. He can't even think, can't even register the moments between sleep and waking because he is knocked so deeply into his subconscious by pain that there is only a blistering never ending wave of terror and torment

 _I want to die,_ he begs. _Please, just let me die._

God doesn't answer this prayer either.

By the time they stabilize his body and he can actually think beyond the enduring agony, he knows so much time has passed. He can feel it in how languid his bones and muscle are, how his body sags and curves into the bed beneath him, and how when he opens his mouth and sucks in air, there is a horrible disgusting taste of disuse.

What have they done to him?

He finally wakes from physical agony to a pain of another kind, and his horror grows so extreme that between the persistent spasms of pain and his mental torment he chokes on his own panicking breath and they put him under once again.

He lingers between pain and sleep for so long, it finally occurs to him that the reason God has abandoned him is not out of malice or apathy but because he's finally fallen to hell and the Devil has him ensnared in his fiery grip.

That is almost preferable, Red thinks, than to actually waking up to Leverrier's face over him.

The first words he speaks are full of hatred so vile it breaks his heart a little.

"What did you do?" He cries, voice feeble and soft and weak.

Leverrier is smiling - in what Red assumes is meant to be mollifying - and pats the back of Red's right hand. Red sobs, begging his body to flinch away from the touch as it sends bolts of lightning up his arm, but too weak to do it himself.

"We saved you," Leverrier breathes, eyes alight with the most childish delight Red has seen on him yet. To Leverrier, Red is a curiosity, a bet, a gamble made where the only stakes are Leverrier's boredom. "We have made you stronger."

Red gathers what little saliva he has in his mouth and with glee spits into Leverrier's face. Disgusted, the man rears back, hurriedly tugging his handkerchief from its pocket to wipe away the mess. "No matter what we do for you - train you, raise you, educate you - you will always remain true to what you are, won't you?" His drawl is so sarcastic it almost makes Red want to laugh, if his chest weren't already heaving with horror.

 _"What did you do?"_ Red demands, lips trembling with the effort it takes to hold down his screams as another wave of pain rips through him. Fuck, what the hell is wrong with his body? He can't even twist his neck to survey any part of him.

Leverrier has moved away and back to the foot of the bed, where a low table rests against the metal bars there. He lifts a hand mirror and brings it to Red's side, angling the glass to better reflect Red's face.

He throws up at what he sees, too weak to even turn his head aside, and he begins to cry and tremble as his own warm bile dribbles and drips from the corners of his lips, down his chin and neck, and to pool like a gentle touch around his neck and hair.

 _God, God, please._

 _For once, just kill me._

* * *

Leverrier leaves him after that, calling frantically for the doctor. That doesn't really shock Red or bother him - in fact, he finds life much more pleasant when Leverrier is disgusted by him - but what makes his heart stutter and his breath catch is when before he leaves Leverrier takes his handkerchief and begins to wipe away the vomit collecting on his chin.

Red swipes his tongue along his teeth and in his mouth, collecting all the left-over spit, and then hurls that at Leverrier, too, until the man finally leaves him be.

Fuck him and fuck his pity.

Yet, when the doctor comes along with a few more attendants, and he's so weak they all have to make an effort to lift him, Red begins to think that perhaps, for once, he has finally hit rock bottom.

Maybe he deserves their pity, just as he deserved their hate and ridicule. Some kind of poetic justice, or some shit like that.

He's sweating so much from the pain and he's covered in so much filth, no one really notices the tears that drip to mingle with the blood slowly seeping from his mouth.

He's a mess. The Order has fucked him over so bad there's no going back from this. He can't tell exactly what they did, but he can feel how wrong it is, can feel the very disgust others have for him in himself. All of his nerves are alive and skittering like ants across his skin, dragging their pincers and slicing his flesh into thin rivulets so that he has to glance down occasionally to reassure himself he's still in one piece.

It's a moot effort, since he's damned to live not only by the very hand of God bred inside him, but by the powers that be in the Vatican.

The nurse cradling him leads him to an attached bathroom, and Red finally notices that this room is not part of the hospital ward in headquarters, but rather somewhere entirely different and so foreign there's no way of him recognizing it.

He feels the last of his dignity shred when the nurse - male, thankfully - lowers him in to a large bath tub and begins to undress him. He talks all the while, soothing and low and very carefully, as though Red would break at the softest of consonants.

Red doesn't listen, slowly succumbing to the pain creeping back over him once more. It suddenly occurs to him that they must have pumped his body with opiates. He feels his stomach turn again, but there's nothing left to give, and Red think his heart is crumbling into ash as he's lean into the side of the tub, head lolling ugly and dangerously, too weak to even hold himself up at that.

He keeps his eyes closed as the nurse carefully washes him, and ignores the tender touches that pass through his hair and down his cheeks, wiping away the tears that don't seem to touch.

It's too late for kindness in his life.

* * *

When Red has healed enough to sleep lighter than the death his body puts him in to avoid the pain, it is of bright blue skies and pink flowers. It's peaceful, sweet, and he thinks this is what his heart desires. To be alone in an endless field of blushing flora with the most surreal of skies cascading over him.

He also dreams of the same unending pain that plagues him in his waking hours, so when he wakes one day to a blond stranger quietly reading beside him, it takes him far too long to recognize him.

He says something, lips forming letters and a word he doesn't remember a moment later, and it's only when the stranger looks up and frowns that he realizes it's Link.

"You're finally awake, Red," Link says with a soft sigh, closing his book and setting in on an end table. He leans forward in his seat slightly, and his right arm jerks with an immediately aborted action that takes Red a second to realize was meant to touch him. He's glad Link didn't touch him.

In his stupor here, the only ones who touch him are the doctor and that male nurse, who comes every day to knead his muscles and comb his hair. He's the only person who's willing to treat Red's body the way it needs to be if he ever intends to live a life outside of this room as an invalid, but with every touch Red's heart breaks a little more. He can't say why.

He doesn't answer Link, instead turning his gaze just enough to touch upon the book he was reading. Red doesn't recognize the language the title is in, but Link is too busy staring at him to indulge him.

"Has anyone told you what's happened?" Link asks, and Red keeps staring at the strange words, trying to make sense of the illegible.

Link takes a deep breath, and Red's heart seizes in sudden, inexplicable, fear. No, he doesn't want to hear this. Please, he doesn't want to know!

Terror holds him tight and keeps an iron clad grip on his lungs, and he's not breathing when Link finally tells him.

"You were drafted into the Third Exorcist program, descended from the Second Exorcists'. Central has implanted an akuma into your body to keep you alive."

 _No,_ Red thinks with mounting horror. _No,_ he prays, pleading for Link to be lying. _Don_ ' _t tell me this!_

Link's calls for the doctor grow more and more distant as his vision grows dimmer, and he idly realizes that he's having another panic attack. He vaguely registers gentle hands carding through his hair, and someone talking to him. He has only enough presence of mind to turn his face and meet the stricken gaze of the male nurse kind enough to consider him human, and he begins to cry as he mourns his lost humanity, and the naivety he once held to ever consider having it before.

God has made it abundantly clear that he is not in His favor.

* * *

 **A/N:** Not a very happy work, and probably won't get much better from here.

Written based off the premise of Exorcist!Red falling into a coma due to injuries from the Level 4 attack on headquarters, and Leverrier signing him up for the Third Exorcist program when he shows no signs of awakening.


	2. Chapter 2

Wow, thank you for the lovely feedback! I'm so glad you like this angst-y mess, I feel bad when I think it only gets worse...

 **Warning:** Graphic descriptions of pain and other sicknesses, along with _suicidal thoughts and contemplation._ Heresy. Lots of cursing. A GrimDark fic!

* * *

 _Depravation_

 _Chapter 2_

* * *

Red is weak. He knows this.

He knows it in his bones like he knows it in his heart and in the blood that doesn't recognize him anymore. He saw it in the experiments they've inflicted on his body and mind and in the ways he flinches from touch.

He knows it in the way he cries every time he wakes up, leftover tears from the nightmares that plague him or the dreams that will never come true, and in the despair that greets him every morning when he realizes he's still alive.

Red is so very weak and he's so very tired, but he can't even die because God has abandoned him and the Order has taken him. He will not die - no, not on their watch. He's their greatest asset now - a Parasite user, a Third Exorcist, a Noah with control of the Ark, and someone with nothing else to live for but the very akuma that has now condemned him.

Sometimes he laughs, and it ruptures things inside him so that the laughter bubbles up his throat and leaks from the corners of his mouth like woe-begotten tears that the nurse wipes away with trembling fingertips, smearing red on cloth.

More than once Red has woken up to the soft, dry and slightly chapped sensation of fingertips rubbing away the tears from his eyes, and the skin there is so soft and worn and tender that among all the other blistering pains his body is lost in, even this tiny discomfort is noticeable.

The pain hasn't gone away, he doesn't even think it's become bearable. Sometimes, when he thinks it's gotten better, he'll twitch a finger, and it'll send acidic anger screeching up his arms into the hollow of his throat and wrenched from his mouth in wails so agonizing they've ripped his vocal cords, and then he'll realize it's only the forgiving touch of morphine that's ever made it seem so.

Every day Link sits by his bedside, talks to him, reads to him - academic journals, recipes by Jerry, Exorcist reports, even fairy tales. Red loves hearing about the fairy tales. He's never had a chance to before, and the imagination gives something for his mind to ponder while he's asleep, instead of endlessly repeating the daytime terrors.

Sometimes they talk. It's not often, because the effort it takes to keep from screaming requires his teeth clenched and lips near white with the effort, but when they've upped his narcotics until he's mixing laughter and tears, they talk. Red doesn't really remember what he says, only the emotions behind him, and they only have two types of conversations.

Red knows that he spat fury and vengeance in high-slurred words when Link is still there the next morning when he wakes, lips an angry slash across his face with how thinly pressed they are in the poorest shows of anger Red's ever seen on Link. These nights of conversation are bearable, because it makes Red feel strong to think that he still has his anger.

But, on the mornings he wakes with not even the nurse willing to be beside him, he knows that night was spent in despair and agony, and an endless litany of pitiful wails chanting into God's deaf ears _kill me, kill me, kill me, please have mercy._

It's his weakest moments, and in those he is his most honest. There is something endless pain does to you that makes your very bones brittle and your heart soft to touch, where a careless breeze might just collapse it into deceased dust and ashes. On these mornings, Red wakes up to an empty room and a heart too full of rage, terror, and self-hatred. He hates so much these days, it's a wonder the pain has found a place in his heart at all.

Still, all of this could be bearable - would be, because Red has no choice but to grit his teeth tasting of iron and bear it, but nothing changes. Day in and day out it is the same, waking up crying because he hasn't died yet and holding back screams at most minute of touches that grazes him when he isn't high on medication, a blanket over his nerves to calm their furious raging.

His own body is trying so desperately to kill itself, a last ditch effort to rid the terrible monsters warring within him, but the Innocence is damned to save him and the Dark Matter cursed to preserve him. As desperately as they want to rid the world of the other, they also must stay alive themselves, and so it is pain and retreat and hurt and stop and bloody and heal.

When he wakes up with a deep breath and finds the kind nurse there beside him, once again rubbing his eyes sore, the nurse begins to cry too.

"Please stop," the nurse begs him, and Red has no strength to ask _stop what?_ "Please," the word ends brokenly with tears that drip onto Red's cheeks in a sobering mimicry of the nurse's own tender touches.

"Please stop saying you want to die."

* * *

Leverrier is also a frequent visitor, being the only other one aside from Link, that is.

He stands beside Red and waxes poetic on all the good he will do the war, how strong he will be, how wonderful a thought it was when it had struck him - this program, that is, and signing Red up for his own death - and how very pleased God will be that Red is alive to fight this holy crusade.

The length between visits grows longer and longer each time, because with each one Red learns how to perfect his aim with his tongue, and Red is almost positive it's working on Leverrier's nerves to wipe bile, spit, blood, and mucus off his face each time.

Red carefully ignores how very elated he becomes when Leverrier visits him. He is the only one Red has mediated time and again on how exactly to kill, and the elation is so sick it makes him nauseous - which isn't noticeable, anyways, because he vomits half of what he eats half the time. Which leaves him only actually eating a quarter of what he should, Red muses.

And that's showing. No matter the IVs and careful liquids they slip down his throat, it's not enough to accommodate both his constantly raging Innocence and the Dark Matter caged within him. He has his own war now, with no ammunition, support, or even any kind of leverage.

The longer this goes on, the more time Red loses, and not just prophetically.

When he opens his eyes now, Link always starts, and the nurse comes with eyes alight with tears that he's refused to shed ever since he begged. Red is never aware long enough to demand what all of this is about, and it's only as the days wear on that he slowly begins to peace together the scattered patches of memories that remain.

He's wasting away, and despite the raging that's there in his blood sometimes, it is mostly a relief.

 _Finally,_ he thinks. _Finally._

* * *

The dreams come and go and when he wakes he can never remember them, either, but he can still capture the feelings and sensations.

Content, amazed. Awe widening his eyes and joy infusing his lungs with laughter, the familiar burn of muscles being worked as he runs through fields, playing like he never has before.

Calm, beloved. The last isn't familiar to him, but in this dream it is. The gentle feeling of being wrapped in a hug and the overwhelming adoration at seeing their smiling face, of hearing your name from their lips.

Terror, agony. Endless ripping and tearing and blood dripping into his eyes, down from them, parching his dry lips. He can feel his throat raw from screaming, a song uninterrupted and never ending. He knows what he's feeling but not why or where, and though it's the same it changes sometimes. The hard lining of a mortar and brick wall at his back, the cool firm asphalt under him, a dry hard-packed cold ground beneath him, snow melting in his hair.

* * *

Of course, fucking Leverrier has Plans A, B, C, and a contingency reserve even then.

Red opens his eyes still with that age-old despair that he is awake, and becomes aware of an old presence beside him.

It's Old Man Zhu, Bak's great-uncle. Red blinks wide eyes, so shocked that even his ongoing pain is temporarily abated, though it comes back with a vengeance that forces a cry out from his now normally mute lips.

 _"Wh_ -at?" He manages, voice cracking and weak with disuse. It strikes him that with his hearing aid, Zhu probably thought he'd just opened his mouth a bit wider to breath.

Before he can try again, Leverrier steps up behind Zhu's shoulders with his hands clasped behind him. Link stands at attention on Red's other bedside, and horror grows steadily within Red.

 _"No,"_ He wails, voice too broken to manage anything strong. He doesn't know what they're planning, but he wants no part in it. They've disparaged him up enough already. _"No!"_ He's almost openly sobbing at this point, and though Zhu and Link both look uncomfortable, Leverrier does not, and Red knows damn well that he's the only one with any kind of say in the room. _Fuck Link,_ he thinks bitterly. _And fuck the old man too_. For letting him be this way. For letting Leverrier do this to him. For not even trying to protect him, he curses, tears budding in his eyes of another kind of pain. And then he laughs because it'd ridiculous he ever thought anyone would try to protect him at all.

"Control yourself," Leverrier says, and Red only has enough presence of mind to stop his strange crying and laughter so that he doesn't rupture something and have to feel the blood lining his mouth and throat for days. "Look happy, why don't you! I have good news for you!"

It's too bad, Red thinks, that he laughed. He can't manage any more words, but he has some very choice ones that would make even Hevlaska shudder in her own ghostly form from far away.

"Zhu Mei Chan here," Leverrier brings one hand forward to gesture towards Zhu, as if Red's pain and medicine have made him addled in the mind. Perhaps they have, Red thinks. "Has a wondrous skill that will finally set your body right. Time waits for no one."

 _Translation_ , Red thinks bitterly, _your body is taking too fucking long and we need you out there already. Here's a damn band-aid, stop your bitching._

"Hello Red," Zhu says kindly, and Red can see the doubt whirling in his eyes and in the way his fingers tremble. "It's..."

 _It's not nice to see me at all you old fucker,_ Red thinks angrily, almost wants to smile just to spite the old man who cannot manage the pleasantry while staring Red in the face. Long ago Red learned that people believe things they get told often enough, and Zhu thinks he cannot meet Red's eyes and blatantly lie. It's a damned honesty.

"Sir, what...?" Link trails off uncertainly, staring at Zhu with clear confusion in his eyes, even as his back remains disgustingly straight and his hands folded primly behind him. Red can feel hate brewing for him, Zhu, Leverrier, and even the nurse who has been kind to him. Nothing is safe from Red's hate. Even himself.

Leverrier nods towards Red. "Well then? Can you fix it?"

Zhu's mouth trembles for a moment, before he gathers himself and tracks the length of Red's body contemplatively. Somehow, it is even more of a disgrace than had he been standing, but laid out as he is - a cursing angry useless invalid - it feels so much more like he's at the mercy of others.

"Yes," Zhu says firmly. "I can, but..." _should I?_

Red is almost resigned to his fate. He cannot do anything against it, anyways. His body has betrayed him and he is weak. Even his voice and mind fail him, torn and brittle by time and pain.

"Then do it," Leverrier says, and Red shuts his eyes.

He plunges himself into the darkness, an old habit he'd long since lost use of but seems rather pertinent now. He used to do it often as a child, when he was beaten ragged and abused violently - close off your mind, sink into the darkness, as if you are under the gentle embrace of water, with water so warm you can't even feel it. It's endless, alone, and there Red finds...quiet. Not peace. Never peace.

Whatever Zhu does to him, it isn't painful. Or, it's not at first at least. In fact, all he notices is his pain subsiding, and that's enough for him to open his eyes wide.

Bright light is emanating from Zhu, and in a word lost in a flash of wonder and awe, Red's chest heaves upward as life and air is breathed into him by God. His mouth falls open in exaltation and his eyes slip closed as tears tremble from his eyelashes to curve down his cheek, falling in God's grace so light and steady he cannot notice them. He breaths, lungs filling with sweet air, and it's like he's being born again.

"What?" He says, eyes opening wide enough to feel air dry the softness there.

"How is it?" Leverrier asks eagerly, and Link is staring down at him with something like horror.

"How is..." Red trails off, licking his lips in an effort to focus on something else other than the relieved tears that won't stop. The pain is gone.

No, not entirely. It's still there. But it's so much more less, so much more bearable that he can't even fathom now how he tolerated it before.

For the first time since he's woken up, Red sits up, blankets falling to puddle around his waist as he bends forward, presses his nose into the slender curve of his knee under his thick cover, and begins to openly sob.

 _Thank you, thank you, thank you._

 _I hate you, I hate you, I hate you._

 _Every last fucking one of you._

* * *

 **A/N:** Red wants to die, and they won't let him.

Thank you for the kind reviews! Because he is still Red, it means he never met Mana Walker and so never took on the name Allen Walker. You can find some background of this in [Relief], another Exorcist!Red fic of mine featuring Red when he was younger. I'll publish that one tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

This fic is hard to write haha It's so emotionally-intense

 **Warning:** Cursing, along with depictions of violence.

* * *

Depravation

Chapter 3

* * *

The only good thing to come of Zhu's magic is Red's newfound freedom.

Consequently, Link has now chained himself to Red's side because apparently finding his bed empty one morning was one morning too many. Still, Red prefers Link's aggravation over his excessive pity. He hated having a CROW near him in the first place, and having one pity him had been even worse.

As far as CROW go, Link is not different nor unusual - they're all sickly in their devotion and apathy, but Red is someone who's learned to adapt, and perhaps as a person Link is... bearable.

For one, maybe pitying Red for all the time he lay half-dead half-dying has sown some warmth into the CROW's heart, because aside from half-hearted mutters beneath his breath, Link doesn't stop Red from doing what he wants.

Not like Link's admonishments would have stopped Red in the first place, but he appreciates not needing to go to the effort of saying "I don't give a fuck."

Even though Zhu healed him, he's only repaired what was damaged and not solved the problem itself. The man had grown sickly and pale, fainting against Red's bedside, and Red, too involved in his own wallowing self-pity, barely noticed. Leverrier had Zhu carried away and tended to, and demanded of Red to know if that was enough.

Red had stayed silent.

For almost a week he'd remained speechless, and Link _thought_ he had discovered Red's nightly escapades the very morning after they first occurred, but for that entire week Red had wandered the halls like a man possessed, endlessly searching. When the night drew long and heartrendingly empty, Red had left his bed and walked.

It's a testimony to how much the staff pitied him that they never said a thing. Hell, no one even talked to him - in fact, Red rather thinks they outright avoided him on these walks. He can't tell if it's because of their own shame or because of the expression he wore.

Still, night after night Red slipped from his room on bare feet to walk down cold halls.

But since Link had found out about the trips when Red had been too careless and stayed too long lost in his thoughts, Red had refrained from walking. In the quiet empty cold halls there had been something almost like salvation. There, he was alone. No eternal beeping, no muted falls of a nurse's steps, no quiet breathing from a watch dog. Just Red by himself in a looming lonely world, for once the only one in his own mind. He felt like he was slowly falling apart, mad after weeks of endless pain.

Having someone tail him during these walks defeats their very purpose, so he's stayed in bed since.

Red hasn't told anyone - not even the annoying ass doctor - but the pain isn't gone. Not entirely, at least. Old Man Zhu had rid him of most of it, but Red knows deep in his bones that it's only going to return as time goes on. The broken and burst pieces inside him had been mended, but the Innocence and Dark Matter haven't found any kind of truce - won't find one, for that matter. And so in their eternal fight Red's body will be the one to take the fall, and it's already showing again.

He is so tired of sighing and of crying. The skin around his eyes is sore still no matter how much salve the nurse slicks there, fingers gentle and always trembling now. Red feels a twisting guilt, sometimes, and thinks he should comfort the nurse. But there isn't enough fucks in him to care enough to actually do anything, so he lets the shamed and guilt-ridden nurse still care for him.

Red will never again bend backwards for anyone else. He knows he lies - lied before and will lie again. He's a stupid fool, an idiot of the worst kind. He lies to himself over and over - _I don't care, I won't care, I won't help, I won't be kind._

Lie, lie, lie. His wretched heart blooms full in his chest of sympathy and pity and it's all he can do to hold down his impulses to reach his hand out.

But, with this recent atrocity - with his body depraved and degraded by monsters who truly don't care - he can't afford kindness even in the depths of his heart.

* * *

It's a week after he stops his mad wanderings that Leverrier comes back again. Red doesn't think any other Exorcist has ever had the sheer _pleasure_ of Leverrier's company as often as Red has.

It's a petty thing, but one Red revels in, as he turns his head away from Leverrier to stare at Link, who promptly stands at attention. "Sir," Link greets eagerly with a quick glare thrown at Red for good measure. Red rolls his eyes, shifting to get comfortable in his bed that he reclines in, pillows propped to let him sit up.

"Good afternoon," Leverrier replies, and Red can feels his stare. "Red. ... _Red."_

Scowling, Red glares holes into the wall behind Link. "This is just childish," Leverrier says, and Red forces down the impulsive shrug. He doesn't give a damn. "Regardless, even if you pretend to not listen you'll still do what I say."

Red grinds his teeth together, blood roaring in his ears. The... the sheer _gall_ of this man! To rip away Red's agency and independence like they're nothing but butterfly wings. He doesn't want to see him or hear him, or even sense his _breathing_ near Red. He wants that man gone - dead and buried under six feet and maybe even then chained to a cement block and tossed into the middle of the ocean. He wants Leverrier to suffer. He wants to wrap his hands around his throat and squeeze until he's red and then puce and then blue and then pale as breath and life slowly leave him.

"By the end of this week the doctors say you will be fine to leave. Link will escort you to your new rooms and from there you will follow the regimen the rest of the Third Exorcists learned under."

The rest? There are more like him? More cruel unnatural abominations born of this man's insanity? Anger and pity and hatred grows in him, and without warning he tucks his legs under him and launches himself from his bed, hands stretching for Leverrier.

It's unfortunate, he thinks, snarling and gasping, that Link is a CROW. The blond reacts quickly, hands grabbing his shirt and yanking him back and then further, until he wraps Red into a headlock with his body splayed sideways across the bed, Link's thighs pressing into it's side as he struggles to hold Red down.

He's hyperventilating, panicking, and Leverrier's calm facade - the fucker didn't even have the decency to _gasp_ in shock - staring him down. His chest swells with anger, and it's then he realizes why his mind, his subconscious, demanded he take all those meditative walks.

Dark Matter and Innocence rise to his calling, induced by his wild anger, and he feels like both his arms are splitting apart. He howls in pain, throwing his head back and knocking into Link's chin with bruising force. He's screaming, thrashing and gasping and terrified.

"Sedate him!" Leverrier yells, and Red furiously shakes his head, chest heaving.

"Get out!" Red screams. "Get out get out get out _get out!"_

"Red," Link pleads, arms still around him tightening enough to leave bruises. "Red, calm down! You need to calm down!"

It's not until Leverrier leaves and nurses and doctors flood the room that Red forces his breathing into even paces, trying in vain to remember what Kanda used to do. In in out, in in out, in in out.

It's not until Link releases his hold and carefully lays Red down that he realizes he's chanting it deliriously. "In in out, in in out, in in out."

"It's okay," Link soothes. "He's gone now."

Red nods shakily, still forcing his breathing even and filled with relief as he notices the pain slowly dissipating in his arms. It's slow - first at his shoulders, then down to his elbow, along his forearms where on his right it feels like the two bones there are realigning and closing, and then his wrists, his hands, and finally in his fingertips. Those stay tingling, and they're red at the ends, like they're chapped with cold.

The room is empty. Red turns to Link questioningly and Link shrugs. "I had them sent away. You just needed to calm down - drugs were not necessary."

Red struggles with the impulsive words, holding them in his mouth and then swallowing them down, refusing to say them. Link does not deserve his gratitude. It would take an act of God to ever redeem Link of what he's done. Red doesn't care that he was under orders or that he's signed his own life and soul away to this cause - what was done to Red was immoral and inhumane, and even if Red hates himself more than he hates Link, he'd rather be damned than let Link ever think he'd be forgiven.

The sudden rage and pain has left him tired and breathless still, and so he falls into the pillows, lets Link pull the covers up. He's no fool - the CROW still pities him. This is no act of kindness.

He turns away from Link and sighs as his eyes closed, finding that dark quiet space in his mind where nothing or no one touches him or sees him. Its quiet again.

* * *

Link is gone. It's only for a moment, to make sure Red's rooms are ready. Until then, he's been bound to his bed by a few feathers on his legs and by the nurse standing watch next to his bedside. Red hates the tender way the nurse reaches to prop his bed up, fluffing his pillows so Red can sit against them instead of lying flat with his indignity bare for all to see.

The moment of silence stretches and Red forces himself not to break it.

"I'll miss you," the nurse blurts, and Red chokes on his spit.

"What?" He cries, shocked. It takes a moment for the words to set in and then he's blushing. _"What?"_

"You..." the nurse looks away, and Red wonders if he ever learned his name and simply forgot it in the haze of pain. "You're so strong."

Red's shaking his head before he can stop himself, scowling.

The man's voice drops to a whisper, eyes darting around as if someone will jump out from under Red's bed to catch him. "What we did... what we did is awful. None of the CROW acted this way when we performed the surgery... and now I know why. They didn't have Innocence. This was done to them willingly. You... you were forced." His voice breaks.

Red's trembling violently, his hands shaking as he clutches the covers resting at his hips. This is different from Link's pity or Zhu's self-hatred. This was earnest sympathy and regret, aimed only for Red.

"I'm sorry," the nurse continues with a shaking breath. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"I don't want your apologies!" Red snaps, ignoring the way his breath hitches and how his throat hurts. "They don't do anything or change anything!"

The nurse looks more like Red's slapped him without reason than simply yelled at him, rearing back and eyes wide. They are quiet, and slowly the nurse's shoulders relax, though Red can see it's an effort. "...you're right. I just -" he swallows hard. "I... asked to be assigned to you."

Red furrows his brow. "Assigned?"

The nurse nods. "Yes. Though the CROW will be responsible for general treatment I'm the one who's on call for anything worse than simple first aid can fix. You... are unprecedented. We only have five successful Third Exorcists, and of them all none had Innocence. We don't know whether the Dark Matter or Innocence will consume each other or how that will affect you."

It's all Red has felt in his own bones tearing themselves apart, but it was never put so bluntly before him. Fuck, they were all fools. Stupid, stupid, fools. But, even more concerning isn't just his state of affairs. "Five?" He breathes, chest constricting. Five, five, five. There were five others like him. Five _successful_ ones. How many were failures? How many had they killed in their insane crusade led by a deaf God?

The nurse nods. "Yes. I've heard you'll meet them once you undergo the training. They're currently at Headquarters."

It strikes Red that without Link hovering he can finally ask the questions burning inside him - and this nurse, full of guilt and shame, will tell him just to try and earn some morsel of Red's forgiveness. "Where are we?"

The nurse looks faintly surprised. "...the American branch. North America, to be specific."

Red's mouth goes dry. Fuck, he had kind of assumed he wasn't at Headquarters but he's all the way the fuck in America? Shit. _Shit._

"...you really didn't know?"

"Does it look like I fucking did?" Red snaps, mind whirring with all the implications. He's only been to America once, and he hadn't enjoyed it. More than the trip to Japan for sure, but still. It wasn't a place he had ever thought he'd return to.

Before Red can get more out of the nurse - whose name he _still_ doesn't know - Link returns, face set in an impressive scowl that tells Red he knows exactly what Red had been trying to do. Link nods politely to the nurse and then turns to Red, removing the feathers with whispered words. "Come Red, it's time to leave."

There are two CROW behind Link, hovering just outside the doorway, and childhood nightmares rear in Red's mind at the sight of their uniforms.

He slips from the bed and passes the nurse without a glance, padding barefoot on the cool tile. He follows Link and leaves the room, never looking back.

* * *

 **A/N:** Well then *looks at reviews* I'm seem to have made a few people cry haha.

To answer a few guest questions:

I'm not sure if I'll give Red a name. Red isn't really his name - it's just what people called him. He doesn't have one. Whether he gets one is up in the air for now.

To be fair, having Red as the character instead of Allen creates a lot of questions and complexities. I didn't publish _Relief_ here, which I should since it's sort of a prequel to this fic. Red was found by the Order before General Cross could, so he was taken in much earlier to become an Exorcist. Eventually Cross finds him and takes him, much like in canon.

This is set in that ambiguous time between the Level 4 arc and the Timothy arc. I just stretched it by a few weeks to include Red's forced turn into a Third Exorcist and his healing and training. Sometimes Hoshino's lack of set timelines is frustrating, but in the case of this fic it's a blessing haha.

If you have questions about Link or Red's characterization, feel free to send me a review/pm!


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